diff --git a/doc/source/development/contributing.rst b/doc/source/development/contributing.rst
index 3c5a88333be56..86d495ef2b097 100644
--- a/doc/source/development/contributing.rst
+++ b/doc/source/development/contributing.rst
@@ -147,8 +147,9 @@ Creating a development environment
 
 To test out code changes, you'll need to build pandas from source, which
 requires a C/C++ compiler and Python environment. If you're making documentation
-changes, you can skip to :ref:`contributing.documentation` but you won't be able
-to build the documentation locally before pushing your changes.
+changes, you can skip to :ref:`contributing.documentation` but if you skip
+creating the development environment you won't be able to build the documentation
+locally before pushing your changes.
 
 Using a Docker container
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~